EDITORIAL

Today, the final hammer comes down on the Daley administration's anti-development assault on the landowners who control the former Chicago Dock & Canal Trust parcel now known as River East. The City Council's Committee on Zoning is all but certain to pass a major downzoning for a mixed-use development on a 13-acre site west of Navy Pier and north of the Chicago River.

The vote will hardly be a shining moment for a mayor who, in an uncharacteristic move, aggressively acted to undermine businesses' trust in city government. River East's investors purchased the land for $180 million in 1997 under the assumption (a logical one) that they could develop the site under density guidelines approved by the city in a 1995 planned development. Only months after the purchase was closed, Mayor Daley's Planning and Development Department led a clumsy attempt to downzone the site by a whopping one-third.

A compromise, which goes to the council panel today, was reached only after developer Daniel McLean was bullied into submission by Daley forces. Mr. McLean and his investors suffered a partial defeat, but City Hall's downzoning quest is a much greater threat to property owners throughout the city -- from the Loop to the Bungalow Belt.

That's because, in Mayor Daley's zeal to downzone developments in desirable downtown and Near North neighborhoods, he is robbing government coffers of potential tax dollars and forcing property owners in less-development-rich neighborhoods to pick up the tab.

The logic is simple: Lower density means lower assessed values on city property. By downzoning sites in areas with maximum development potential, City Hall is cutting off a major source of incremental tax revenues. As city spending continues to escalate, new tax receipts must come from somewhere. That somewhere won't be big downtown developers, but the single-family homeowner in Bridgeport, the condo owner in Rogers Park or the small businessman on the South Side.

Mayor Daley's downzoning push may win him votes in fashionable Near North neighborhoods, but it is the average Chicagoan who will ultimately pay the price.

It's time for City Hall to account for the opportunity costs associated with its war on density. Just as city officials require economic impact studies for economic development subsidies, they should require impact studies on downzoning. That way, taxpayers and City Council members would have a real sense of how much they will be losing in potential real estate tax revenues.